


Death is at your doorstep

by towardsmorning



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach, mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Molly is much more scared of Sherlock alive in her living room than she would have been if he had <i>actually</i> died, in the end."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death is at your doorstep

It hasn't settled in her mind yet, what she's done.

Molly knows that it will. Eventually. But right now she just feels numb all over and sort of like she's not quite there, as though there are strings on her arms and feet guiding her. A dim part of her brain supposes that this is a good thing, will convince the people around her that she's grieving for a man they think is dead, if she looks unsure and blank and uncomprehending. It's a typical stage of grief, one she's seen dozens of times before- _no, it can't be real, what do I do?_

So she sits in her chair and ignores her co-workers' pleas to end her shift early, diligently deals with paperwork and all the dull parts of her job that she finds soothing, and then at the end of the day she packs her things up and walks out, head pointed at her feet and chest gripped with a sudden, tight fear that somebody will wonder if she's acting right.

There aren't any mirrors around and she's left her compact at home. She has no way of knowing what expression has settled onto her face.

*

Molly has always been terrible at telling people 'no', even if she's nowhere near as meek with everyone else as she is with Sherlock- it started with her sister when they were little and Jane always got Molly to cover for her when she snuck out, and then it snowballed from there. It's gotten her into trouble plenty of times before. But she can't bring herself to be anything but quietly proud at her offer this time, even if she knows she never really had that much of a choice.

*

When she gets home he's sat on her sofa, staring at the turned-off television and curled in on himself. They had agreed this beforehand, she'd given him the address herself and he'd haughtily informed her that he wouldn't need keys for a Yale lock of all things, but the sight still stuns her and she hovers in the doorway. He doesn't fit into her little flat at all, too dark and sharp-edged. He looks like ink dropped into a glass of water, all contrast and shapes.

Molly realises she's been staring and clears her throat. "Do you want some tea?"

"Yes," he says, tone neutral. She nods and gratefully clears off to the kitchen, clattering mugs with just a little too much noise. Suddenly Molly wishes he would put the TV on. Or her radio, or something, anything. He was right when he said she wasn't any good at small-talk. Molly has never understood how to fill silence. That was why she had bought a cat, for goodness sake, because Toby turned a lonely silence into a comfortable one.

When the tea is done she comes out and hands him his mug, still silent. He drinks it automatically. His hands are perfectly steady but tense, as though he expects to have to leave at a moment's notice, prepared to toss whatever they're holding away.

A week, Sherlock had said. A week, and then he would leave Britain.

Before she can dwell on that Molly swallows her own tea without tasting it and escapes to her bedroom, heart inexplicably pounding. _Oh,_ she thinks, _now it's sinking in,_ and she ends up curled in a ball on the floor alternating between hysterical giggles and utter terror.

*

Molly isn't scared of death. It's funny, because people seem to want to catch her out about that- they like the idea of the girl working in a morgue, surrounded by bodies and secretly nervous. Or perhaps it's just her social awkwardness mistaken for anxiety. But she genuinely doesn't find any fear in the concept and never has. She doesn't _like_ people dying, thinks it's a shame, cries if she knows them personally because she'll miss them- but one day everybody does it. She isn't a religious woman, doesn't expect much to come after, but there's not really anything to find scary in nothing, is there?

The bodies don't bother her either. She read once that cats don't recognise their owners' corpses because they seem so different to living bodies, and she thinks it's quite right. Bodies aren't people, so why be afraid of them?

She's much more scared of Sherlock alive in her living room than she would have been if he had _actually_ died, in the end.

*

Sherlock smokes.

It's not something she had ever seen him doing before- perhaps he's only just started- but he smokes and he doesn't open the windows and it's driving her up the wall.

It's such a tiny thing, but every time she walks in to find him holding a cigarette something inside her flinches and wants to shake him. "I suppose dead men don't care about their health," she tries as a joke on the third day when she comes down in the morning. It falls flat; she sounds too annoyed.

"Don't make jokes, Molly."

"I can make all the jokes I like," she mutters quietly, "it's my house."

"Flat."

She doesn't respond to that, instead sighing. "Would it be so hard to please open a window, Sherlock?"

"Can't. Somebody might see."

Oh, of course. Seven stories up. Though perhaps he's worried somebody's watching the flat? Or is that paranoia? She never knows what is and is not over the top with Sherlock and all the mystique he brings alongside himself like a shroud, even when he's sat in her poorly-lit living room on her ratty old sofa.

"You don't need to lean out or anything, I just... it would clear the air a bit, you know? We'd breathe a bit easier."

"Breathing's boring," he retorts, and then stops. Absolutely nothing changes in his face for upwards of ten seconds, and then he grinds the end of his cigarette into a coffee mug and stalks over to the window, throwing it open almost defiantly.

*

The day she met Sherlock is one Molly recalls extremely clearly.

It's funny, almost as though he had rubbed off on her. She remembers that he was wearing a purple shirt and that his hair hadn't been neat, and that even though it was a nice day he'd still worn that coat of his. He'd rushed in and demanded access to a body, talked his way around the issue of whether or not he was with the police, and asked her why she bothered biking to work when it was so close she could just as easily walk. When she'd stuttered out some terrified demand, wondering if he was some sort of stalker, he'd sighed and outlined soil types and splash patterns on her trousers. She hadn't said so at the time but of course she'd been impressed, how could she not have been? Not just by the method, but by the data itself, so clean and precise. He must have spent years memorising stuff like all the different soil types in London.

He walked and spoke like someone who never stopped doing either. She knows that's not true now, has seen him be still for hours at a time, but even so, his energy is compelling and makes her feel foolish somehow. Stuck in her own space, with nowhere to move to.

*

"You should tell him."

"Molly-"

"No, I mean it, Sherlock, he's- you haven't seen him." She pauses, then takes his silence as agreement. "He looks awful. And with the press, and all the people at the flat, it's only going to get worse for him."

"It's too dangerous."

"You used to drag him around with you everywhere, for heaven's sake-"

She's getting worked up now, and inexplicably her eyes start to prickle and her throat feels like it has a vice around it. But no. Molly refuses, _refuses_ to cry in front of Sherlock Holmes. She's dealt with enough humiliation in the last five days. No more.

 _Five days._ God, in two more he's going to leave. And he might never come back. _God._

Suddenly she feels a pressure on her shoulder and she looks down, startled, to see Sherlock's hand lying there. His hands are really very nice, she thinks, if a bit like giant spiders. Sniffing, she looks up and can't help but smile at the focused look on his face, clearly trying to see if he's doing this correctly.

"Will you watch him for me?" he asks abruptly after a moment, hand dropping to his side.

"Yeah," she nods. "Of course."

"You can't-"

"I won't tell him. I'll just... keep an eye out. He won't even notice what I'm doing," she promises, and knows she can manage that. John had always been nice to her, far nicer than Sherlock, but with an air of casual politness that meant he didn't really register her in any meaningful way.

"...Thank you," he remembers to say, and Molly acknowledges it with a smile and an offer to go get him a fresh pack of cigarettes.

*

It's not as though Molly is delusional. She does understand that Sherlock is hardly in love with her, and really, she's more or less always understood it. But sometimes it was so difficult to tell what was him using her and then stopping the moment he had what he needed, and what was his total lack of social grace. Everyone did silly things sometimes. Molly's few relationships had all been fumbling at the start, full of misunderstandings and poor communication.

She likes to believe that it didn't make her delusional to have thought he might have considered it worth a go.

*

Day six. Sherlock is pacing like a caged animal, and it's a Saturday Molly has off so she gets to watch him nearly turn himself inside out. It's mostly just surprising that he's taken this long to snap, she thinks as she tries to calm him down. He keeps snapping about _bored_ , and fiddling with his left arm. That last part had seemed an odd habit for him until she recalled the medical records his death had given her access to- cocaine habit. He must be wanting some.

Oh, god, she's been spending far too much time around him.

 _Well at least he can't leave to go find a dealer,_ she thinks weakly. As though he can hear her thoughts he whirls around to shoot a glare in her direction. The force of it is astonishing. It probably says something terribly unhealthy about Molly that it suddenly reminds her just how attractive he is, all manic energy and ridiculous hair and bright, bright eyes. Though they look uncannily like a wounded animal's right now, and admittedly that's less attractive, because the pain is very real and Molly wishes she could let him leave like he clearly wants to.

"Something wrong?" he snaps, barbed, and she shakes her head mutely.

He loses interest after that, flings himself down on her sofa and faces away. It's so much the action of a five year old that she has to catch a giggle before it escapes, because how on Earth had this man ever functioned before he met John?

*

When she was twelve, Molly had a pen-pal for a little over a year. There had been a girl at school that she'd gotten to know almost immediately before they moved away, and they had exchanged letters. Weekly, then bi-weekly, then the last two were monthly before petering out altogether. Even so, Molly had enjoyed them. She liked being able to consider each word before committing to it. She handwrote each one and used to doodle in the margins, silly things that didn't even relate to what she was writing about half the time.

That last night, she considers asking Sherlock if she can write to him every now and again. She knows it's ridiculous and almost certainly impossible- that's why, in the end, she doesn't bother. But a part of her wonders what she'd say if she could consider each word before putting it down, free of his scrutiny for once. The night before he goes she sits down and stares at a blank piece of paper. When she leaves it in the early hours of the morning to go and try to sleep, it's still pristine white.

*

On the final day, he goes over everything with her once, twice, thrice. He makes her repeat it all afterwards and Molly is pleased to hear that she doesn't sound nervous at all. _I'll text you, never vice-versa. It'll be a different number every time. Keep your phone on as often as possible. Reply within the hour._ And so on, and so on- it makes her head spin a little but Molly manages, and finally, he nods once.

"I'll make sure to text at least every two months," he adds almost as an afterthought, and her first thought is _oh, God, will I have to go that long not knowing if..._ Then it hits her. Of course. He's saying that if he misses a deadline, then that's... it.

Pursing her lips together, she forces a smile and nods. "Okay."

They stand in the hall and stare at each other. It strikes Molly that even though all he's done is sat in her flat for a week, he already looks a little worse for wear. There's a faint brush of purple under his eyes and she swears he's paler. Briefly, she wonders what he'll look like when he makes his way back. Probably a lot like the corpse he pretended to be, if this is anything to go by.

"Goodbye, Molly," he says eventually, tone almost apologetic. He doesn't touch her.

Her own hand reaches out of its own accord but she pulls it back just in time.

"Goodbye, Sherlock," she echoes, and watches him walk out the door. It slams behind him, and suddenly she's stood in an empty flat, quiet as the grave, helplessness making her feel heavy and tired in a way she hadn't known was possible. It's all-encompassing, and suddenly Molly isn't worried at all about having to convince people that her mourning is real. It is, in its own way.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone, it seems, has to do a post-FALL Molly fic at some point. This is my contribution. It was inevitable- I've been a huge fan of Molly since episode one, so I'm feeling pretty vindicated about that!
> 
> Title is from Timshel by Mumford & Sons.


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